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Thanks. I assumed it was something to do with slipstreaming but just thought the effect couldn't be great enough to make a difference.

So theoretically someone could try and beat him, but they don't bother because of tradition? Has anyone ever done it?

i don't think so. Tradition is important in the Tour.

Either last year or the year before the leader (can't remember if it was Froome or not - but could have been as it was in the mountains) came off.

One of the top few riders attacked immediately. It was tough to say if that was the reason or it was a coincidence, but his team caught him up, went past him as they would normally and then deliberately slowed the pace.

It does make the last day a bit boring unless you're a fan of a particular sprinter. Would have been interesting of Cavendish was till in and on form.

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Thanks. I assumed it was something to do with slipstreaming but just thought the effect couldn't be great enough to make a difference.

So theoretically someone could try and beat him, but they don't bother because of tradition? Has anyone ever done it?

From Wikipedia, but it was a time trial.

In 1989, Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by 58 seconds over a 24 km time trial from Versailles. In doing so, he closed a 50-second gap to win the 1989 Tour de France by eight seconds. It was the first (and only) time trial final stage on the Champs-Élysées

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Why not make cycling a team sport where the pair win, rather than the individual if it plays such a large part in who wins. Seems a bit unfair on the guy chafing away just to let his mate take all the plaudits.

Telling his grandkids how he was the slipstream man for Bradley Wiggins doesn't sound as great as actually winning the Tour De France.

In F1 if your team mate is around he can help hold up the pack, but Hamilton could still win the race with Bottas miles away.

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8 riders per team I think in the Tour. In a way it would be a fairer sport if there were no teams. As it stands members of stronger teams, with better riders to assist them in the team time trial or half way up a mountain, have a better chance of winning the tour than riders in weaker teams.

Not to mention being a member of the team with the more sophisticated laboratory and team of doctors behind the scenes has, traditionally, had a huge bearing on the result of the Tour.

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Why not make cycling a team sport where the pair win, rather than the individual if it plays such a large part in who wins. Seems a bit unfair on the guy chafing away just to let his mate take all the plaudits.

Telling his grandkids how he was the slipstream man for Bradley Wiggins doesn't sound as great as actually winning the Tour De France.

In F1 if your team mate is around he can help hold up the pack, but Hamilton could still win the race with Bottas miles away.

The Tour winner traditionally does not take any winnings from the race, they are shared amongst the team. G has just won the lottery BIG TIME. Racing events will pay big appearance money to have the TdeF race winner grace their event in the future. Domestiques and in G's case, Super Domestiques, can command high salaries for riding for the benefit of their team leader, and that is their function. G was in the form of his life this season and was clearly the better climber than Chris F, so being a Super Domestique could have created a problem - if having 1 and 2 in the General Classification during the latter stages of the race was a problem! Realistically, in any Grand Tour there are only perhaps half a dozen potential winners, so Sky having two "candidates" in both 2012 and 2018 is remarkable.

The composition of the team evolves annually : it was no coincidence that Team Sky had no less than 4 climbers in their team, and as the penultimate stage demonstrated, they placed three riders in the top four of the individual time trial, both facets being essential to winning the event.

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Im struggling to copy the chart into here but below is the text from cycling news in 2010. Basicaly, the International cycling union did research into cyclists blood passports and rated the 2010 giro participants from 0 to 10 on the liklehood of doping.

Our current Tour de France winner rated a 6. Wiggins a 3.

0 means no suspicion.

See below for an analysis of a 6 to 10 rating.

"From six to ten, the circumstantial evidence of possible doping was "overwhelming". According to the paper, some of the riders located to the top of list have already been singled out by the biological passport and evaluated by the panel of nine experts, even if no procedure was opened. "Still, some of the files' commentaries are damning. Recurrent abnormal profiles, enormous fluctuations, identification of the used doping product and means of administration..." wrote L'Equipe's anti-doping expert journalist Damien Ressiot"

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You've got to admit, it does seem highly suspicious that for something we used to be rubbish at, for 'us' to now hold the three main titles at the same time, there must be something amiss. We can't have all of a sudden, after 100 years, discovered how to peddle faster.

Maybe they all cheat, and we've just found a better, more undetectable way of doing it?

I fall on the side of give all athletes as many drugs as they can take though. Who cares about seeing someone run 100m in 10 seconds, then 9.97, then 9.59? It's basically the same. I want to see someone run it in 5 seconds. That would be progress.

Maybe Thomas is good at peddling. Lets see him win the Tour whilst giving someone a backsie. Then I'll be impressed.

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